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Lauren Bricker's interests have always been different from most other girls. She preferred math and science to other subjects, she was the first girl in her class to take wood shop instead of home economics, and her favorite places to hang out in high school were the computer lab and the ceramics studio.

She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1985 with a degree in Honors Theoretical Mathematics. It was during her first job at Boeing that she discovered two things: she really enjoys programming computers (it's another creative outlet like her art) and she is not fond of working for large corporations. She continued her career working for small technology companies, and, after she was laid off, returned to school to formally learn what she had been doing for a living for so many years.

Her graduate studies in Computer Science at the University of Washington began in the fall of 1990 and she completed her PhD in March 1998. Her interests include primarly Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer Supported Collaboration (CSC), and Single Display Groupware (SDG), although she is a self-proclaimed graphics groupie. Her thesis is entitled "Cooperatively Controlled Objects In Support of Collaboration." The goal of this project was to support highly synchronous collaborative interactions between multiple users in face-to-face or distant situations and to study those interactions. To this end, she developed the Colt System, which includes a design methodology, toolkit and analysis tools. The toolkit includes a hierarchy of objects, termed Cooperatively Controlled Objects, designed to support this type of interaction. This work was an extension of the Mathematics Experiences Through Image Processing (METIP) project. The goal of METIP is to interest junior high school kids in mathematics using exploratory rather than rote learning methods. combined many of her passions: computers, children, creativity, and psychology.

Lauren's last permanent position was at Performant (now Mercury Interactive) as a Lead User Interface Architect, Program Manager and Quality Assurance Manager. She is currently consulting through Brickware focusing on Software Consulting and Artistic Endeavors.

Her personal page is here and comentary on being a geek girl is here.